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Sunday 1 February 2009

List two: annoying toys

From the occasional list series, toys that irritate or frustrate me. Without fail, T adores playing with everything on this list.

Fisher Price Garage
Not only is it unwieldy and plastic, but one of the little people in the car is holding a mobile phone. Do these toy manufacturers not know that's against the law??!

Fisher Price Laugh and Learn CD Player My husband brought this back from Tesco having committed the cardinal sin of not playing with it first to see what it sounds like. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you country music nursery rhymes. I'm not sure whether this is going to come across, but I'll give it my best shot. Baa Baa Black Sheep, in the style of this hideous contraption

(American accent) Baa Baa Black Sheep have you any woo ooo ooo ooo oohl
Yes sir, yes sir, three baa aa ags fuu uuu uuu uuu uuul

Leapfrog Animal Globe Another of the husband's supermarket picks, this time it was reduced so he had to buy it and he didn't check it first. It's American (again). I like Americans, and American things like er, Oreo cookies, but I'd absolutely prefer my son's first toys to speak with an English accent. Don't even get me started on the mock-tudor twiddly music which claims to represent Europe. Oh, and one of the Frogs is called Chad. That annoys me in itself.

ELC toddle truck This isn't the version we have, they've changed it, ours is plain wood on the outside and plain bright coloured blocks in the middle. And it's these blocks that really rile me. They tesselate into the body of the walker leaving a 4 inch gap at one end. They couldn't have added another block to fill the gap? I know it's probably to help little fingers pull out said blocks to play with, bit it frustrates my highly honed aesthete's eye, or something.

Marks and Spencer Police Car
A Christmas present. Once the plastic tag is pulled out of the battery compartment to turn it on, this CANNOT BE TURNED OFF. That's right, unless you procure a miniature screwdriver, undo the battery casing and take out the batteries, given the slightest movement or touch the siren and lights on this car activate, making it extremely, extremely annoying. It's going off in the bottom of the toybox as I write this. I'm leaving it, in the hope the batteries run out soon, it's become the Mum vs toy standoff, pistols (well, sirens) at dawn. I know who's going to win. If all else fails I could accidentally leave it at the doctor's surgery or something.

Tomorrow, toys we love!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello! I discovered your wonderful blog last night. I too am a parent of a toddler who does not sleep.
I love your list!
I am from America and most of my child's toys are from Europe. Can't turst those China imports these days.

Sleepless Mum said...

Thanks for your comment Beth! I'm sorry you also have a sleepless one. We've had a few good weeks but T has been up in the night again since having the pox. I'd forgotten how tiring it is!

I don't mind American toys and games at all, we have some lovely things I've bought via Etsy and various places, but as T starts to say more and more, I'm increasingly conscious of what he's listening to, where he's picking up words from. TBH I'm not overly keen on any 'talking' toys, but the English-accented ones just seem easier to forgive ;-)

I hope you get some more sleep soon x

Unknown said...

thanks for sharing this info...

happy blogging,

Toddler Books

Me said...

We made such a huge deal to our parents and friends not to get Elenore those talking toys that now she is quite intimidated by them. She got a talking Elmo last summer and was so terrified of it we had to take the batteries out anyway.
I totally understand wanting your child to have non-American accent toys. That makes complete sense!
I think you should make a list now of your favorite books.